Your favorite Electrostatic, Panel spkr


 I’m putting together an analog system. First on the list was a turntable, I’ve settled on the Denon DP 59L. 
  Now let’s hear from the owners of some panel electrostatic type speakers, not ones you dreamed of owning, ones that you’ve owned and the reason why they were your favorite. 
kgveteran
Atom, Nice going. Before the Spectra Days Acoustat did make a speaker called the 4+4. It was a 4 panel wide 2+2 and boy did they rock. I probably would have bought a pair if I could have afforded them then.
They had two interfaces so you had to use two channels of amplification on each side. I assume you did 4 panels up and 4 panels down so the speakers are 8 feet tall? I'm sure they do bass fine however I would still use subwoofers as they drop doppler distortion and the panels become even more clear and pristine sounding. 
What seems like forever ago but is probably 25+ years ago I auditioned both a pair of Acoustat 2200 and Acoustat 1100 speakers.  The Audio Plus shop advised that if the room wasn't humongous the 1100s would be more focused due to the single panel and would deliver all the volume I could want..  I auditioned a couple of amps with them as the shop let me in the listening room for a few hours to see what I wanted and I bought the Acoustat 1100's and a Sumo Andromeda II A Mosfet  power amp.  Turns out Acoustats and Mosfet's have a synergistic love affair with each other.  When set up at home the base seemed a loose so additional acoustic fiberglass was added to the woofer module, bit by bit, to clean it up, and it did so nicely.  After demo of about a dozen different speaker cables I settled on Straightwire Maestro..... and same for interconnects after about ten demos.Here we are 25 years later and they still occupy my listening room of 14 years, fully treated but now bi-amped with two Sumo's rated at 240 into 8 and 450 into 4 & 750 into 2.  I've given up bringing in components to try and upgrade and just enjoy my music when I have time.  The rest of the system is an Audio Research LS 2 MKII B with remote, a Sony ES 5400 Super Audio player and a Sansui TU-9900 Tuner max modded by Mike at Radio X and a Magnum Dynalab Signal Slueth and half wave mast.  It runs all balanced from the CD player through the pre to the amps with custom cables, also by Straightwire.  Room treated with bass and mid range circular baffles behind the panels and both side and rear wall treatments.Hope everything goes another 25 years.

I owned the Acoustat 2+2s for many years, and I loved them. They are incredibly revealing and neutral. But I finally sold them and moved to the Martin Logan Impression 11a. I have a large room - 20' x 20'. They don’t play as loud as the 2+2 but are surprisingly balanced and engaging, especially with the right amplifier. I’m currently running a Line Magnetic 518ia on them and there is magic in the combination, more than any of the other half-dozen amps I’ve had on them (from worst to best: NAD M22, Peachtree Nova 300, Wyred4Sound mAmps, PrimaLuna Prologue 7, Pass 150.8, Line Magnetic 518ia). I also own a pair of original Quads (57) running on vintage tube gear. They have a midrange presence that defines their sound, and I love listening to them, but they can’t compete with the ML/LineMagnetic for soundstage and overall presentation of the music.
I entered a high-end music store in the early 1980s in Oklahoma City, just to compare what they had to my great Altec Lansing Flamenco 848a horn and large woofer speakers. These rocked and shook my walls. I was in my early 30s with a limited budget. I saw a pair of tall skinny screens in a frame with a large tubed amplifier attached. I asked what they were and was told that they were electrostatic speakers. They were Acoustat or Martin Logan, I do not remember which. He turned them on and I was blown away. I had never heard any speakers that were so realistic in the midrange and treble. Instruments and vocals were so real I could feel their presence. I had to get them. I asked the price and was told I would have to get the amplifier and the speakers and the combination would cost somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000. I was extremely disappointed because I knew I would never be able to afford them. I left the store and dreamt about those speakers for years. I eventually forgot about them.
In early 2017 I was in Best Buy with my wife and saw a section of the store that was labeled Magnolia. It was a Hi-Fi and TV store. We were thinking about getting a new TV so we went in. After a while, I entered a separate room that had a number of speakers with McIntosh and other amplifiers. They also had a pair of tall skinny screens in a frame. I know that my heartbeat got faster, my face flushed, and I froze and stared at my fantasy speakers. All the memories came back and I just stood and enjoyed the Deja Vu. I asked the attendant to connect them and they sounded as good as I remembered and/or fantasied about. The sharpness, clarity, musicality, detail, speed, dynamic range, separation, soundstage, and solid bass were marvelous. I compared them to the Bowens Wilkins 800 D2 and other high-end speakers and there was no comparison. The electrostatics were so much better in every category that was important to me. Even my wife, who has hearing aids, also noticed and enjoyed. Her hearing has gotten progressively worse in the last 20 years. She has been unable to enjoy most music in the last 10 years because the speakers she has listened to were not clear enough. These electrostats changed this. We now listen to concerts and musical shows and she enjoys what she is hearing as well as I do.
For me, nothing I have ever heard is better.

I own ESL63s and have enjoyed them for about 5 years,  even in a "way too small - that will never work" bedroom converted to a listening room.  I thunk that room is even smaller than what you are describing. I drive them with an Innersound Electrostatic amplifier. 

For those who assert that Quads can't do bass, i can only say that when i got my new Supratek preamp the bass went way deeper. I now use them in a much larger listening room, and their sound has improved.